jazz singer
Personal Information
Born Dianne Reeves, in 1956, in Detroit, Michigan.
Career
Jazz vocalist. Did session work 1976-1980; toured with Sergio Mendes, 1981; toured with Harry Belafonte, 1984; started recording as a solo artist in 1982; albums: Sky Islands, with Caldera, 1977; Welcome to My Love, 1977; The Palo Alto Sessions, 1981; Better Days, 1987; Come In, 1989; Never Too Far, 1990; Dianne Reeves, 1991; Art & Survival, 1993; Quiet After The Storm, 1994; The Grand Encounter, 1996; That Day, 1997; Bridges, 1999; In The Moment: Live In Concert, 2000; The Calling: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan, 2000.
Life's Work
By the beginning of the 21st Century, the jazz divas of the world had passed on, leaving a new generation of jazz vocalists to carry on. One singer that has been established as one of the most significant vocalists to fill the void is Dianne Reeves. After having received four Grammy nominations, Reeves won a Grammy for her album, In The Moment: Live In Concert in 2001. While Reeves is known for her eclectic choice of music, her approach to music is definitely jazz.
Born in 1956 in Detroit, and raised in Colorado, Reeves was surrounded by music as a child. Her father, who died when she was two years old, was a singer, her mother played the trumpet, and her uncle, Charles Burrell, played bass. Reeves was also surrounded by strong women who modeled hard work, and above all, persistence.
Reeves started singing in junior high school and credited her choir teacher, Bennie Williams, for providing the opportunity not only to discover that she had a great voice, but to realize the power of song: there are no boundaries in music. Reeves, who participated in one of the first busing programs to attempt racial integration and balance in the public school systems, remembered how Williams organized a concert at school to help unite kids of different cultural and racial backgrounds. For the concert, Reeves learned two contemporary songs, "Spirit In The Dark" (an Aretha Franklin hit), and Edward Hawkins's "Joy," and, for the first time, Reeves got on stage with a microphone and discovered the power of her voice. Williams became Reeves's mentor and piano teacher, and encouraged her to keep singing.
Later, in high school, Reeves took advantage of all the singing groups that were available--the choir, a madrigal group, and the jazz band. It was during this time that Reeves became acquainted with the great jazz singers. Her uncle Charles, a jazz bassist as well as a bassist for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, gave Reeves a stack of records, and she discovered the voice of Sarah Vaughan. She was amazed by Vaughan's ability to evoke such a wide range of emotions. "I didn't know the voice could do all that. She changed my way of listening and all of a sudden I had a place to reach for in my own singing," Reeves stated on her website, www.diannereeves.com. In addition to singing in school, she sang with church choirs and sang top 40 hits with her own group, The Mellow Moods. She also worked with her uncle Charles and jazz pianist, Louise Duncan.
Winning a city-wide competition in 1973, Reeves's high school jazz band traveled to Chicago to perform at the National Association of Jazz Educators conference (now called IAJE) . She came to the attention of Clark Terry, who at one time was a trumpeter for the Ellington Orchestra. Terry was so impressed with Reeves that he asked her to sing with him at the Dick Gibson's Colorado Jazz Party at the Broadmore Hotel in Colorado Springs later that year. She sang several jazz standards such as "God Bless The Child," "On A Clear Day," and "That's All," with Terry playing trumpet, Tommy Flanagan on piano, and drummer Grady Tate. Reeves referred to that event as her "first grand encounter" and, nearly twenty years later recorded an album featuring many of the musicians that she had worked with over the years, appropriately entitled, The Grand Encounter.
When Reeves first started to sing, she listened to the greats--Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, and Carmen McRae. In particular, Reeves was drawn to Vaughan's rich distinct sound and emulated her style, " ... it was quite an education because it allowed me to feel what it was like to sing phrases over the bar line, to sing a melody and improvise within the harmonic structure without even knowing what I was doing, just listening to how she would do it," she said in an interview with Gerald Jonas, for Great Performances" Swingin' With The Duke, on PBS. However, Reeves was aware that she must develop her own voice, her own style.
While growing up, Reeves listened to, and appreciated, all kinds of music. She was impressed by songs that described the times, that told a story. She came to appreciate the tale that could be told in a song, not just from the lyrics, but by way of a nuance, the phrasing, the enunciation of a word, crescendo and descrescendo. In the mid-1980s, Reeves wrote and recorded "Better Days," a gospel-like narrative about her youth and about her grandmother. Washington Post writer, Holly Bass, quoted at imnworld.com, called "Better Days" a "picture of black Southern life as vivid as you'd find in a story penned by Maya Angelou or J. California Cooper." Reeves explained to Jonas, that she liked the music recorded by Motown, particularly "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye. The song captured the moment, it was blues and jazz, and " ... very free and open, like stream of consciousness, and I'd never heard anything like that except in jazz music." Her song, "Endangered Species," deals with various personal and political issues, including the status of women in the world.
Reeves, who considered jazz as a "passport" to other kinds of music, was also exposed to music from other countries and cultures. The fusing of different cultural styles of music was also very attractive to Reeves. After high school, Reeves attended the University of Colorado for one year and was also kept busy performing in the local clubs. Reeves moved to Los Angeles in 1976, and became interested in Latin-American and Caribbean music. She worked with Sergio Mendes, with whom she accompanied on a world tour, and worked with Eduardo del Barrio, with whom she has consistently worked with for over twenty years. In the early 1980s, Reeves moved to New York and worked with Harry Belafonte, who introduced her to folk music from around the world, particularly African music. This experience allowed Reeves to fully realize the depth of influence the rhythm-oriented African music has had on Latin music and on jazz. In addition, Reeves also discovered the way in which the African tradition of call-and-response has influenced jazz. During this time, Reeves learned a unique style of scat singing which could be described as a blend of jazz and African incantation. The unique rhythms and dynamics that Reeves absorbed during this time has influenced her approach to interpreting a song and helped to develop her own characteristic jazz style.
For several years during her career, Reeves vacillated between musical styles: R&B, gospel, pop, Latin, African, and jazz. She enjoys the freedom that she has had to explore and perform such a wide variety of music, ranging from Ellington, to Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, to Kurt Weill and Stephen Sondheim. Reeves admitted that she has derived a great deal of inspiration from the great jazz singers that she grew up listening to, but she also credited composers and conductors for their inspiration as well. For example, Duke Ellington would change the arrangements of his songs to "fit" the personalities of his musicians. In a way, Ellington's approach helped Reeves realize the importance of just being herself and tailoring her approach depending on who she is playing with and who her audience is. In an interview located online at pbs.org, Reeves said, "I'm a chameleon. When you put me in certain soils, musically speaking, I will be in that place." She also described the difference between singing with a small group and a large orchestra, " ... you have to listen to the music, to the interplay going on in the different sections. Sometimes you have to be able to direct a little, to let people know when you're finished so they can move on.
Reeves maintained that jazz is her musical foundation, and it is undeniable that much of her foundation rests on the inspiration of Sarah Vaughan. In 2001, Reeves recorded The Calling: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan, and album which featured tunes spanning Vaughan's career. For the recording, Reeves surrounded herself with several guest artists and a 42-piece orchestra. The only original song included, "I Remember Sarah," was written by Reeves and Billy Childs, who arranged the majority of the tunes and played the piano on several tracks. Interstingly, the final track on the album, "A Chamada" (written by Milton Nascimento) was not a song that Vaughan ever recorded, "Wayne Shorter turned me on this song, which translated means 'the call.' Its appropriate for the record because Sarah not only loved Milton's music but the sentiment of the song is so much about her. She heeded the call to sing and to be passionate. It's also a song about opening doors and unlocking potential, which is what Sarah did for me," Reeves told Down Beat.
Reeves also met her idol. While still in high school and not long after Reeves had started to listen to and study Vaughan's recordings, she attended a memorial service for Cannonball Adderley with her cousin George Duke. She was backstage, surrounded by musicians and tech people rushing around. Reeves noticed a woman sitting on a sofa, went over and sat down, engaging in light conversation. The woman asked Reeves what she liked to do. Reeves politely responded, explaining that she really liked to sing. The woman then asked her who she liked to listen to. Reeves listed several of her favorite singers including, of course, Sarah Vaughan and explained why she loved Vaughan. After having a nice chat, the woman was informed that it was "time" for her to go on stage. Reeves watched the woman go on to the stage, and suddenly realized, with a shock that she had just had a conversation with Vaughan.
Reeves was obviously focused on Vaughan's music rather than on Vaughan as a celebrity. By the end of the millennium Reeves had established herself as one of the most prominent jazz voices. She is grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from the masters and now that she has moved into the limelight, has begun to teach and mentor to young people. In an interview for LeJazz, Reeves explained, " ... what I'd like to do is have young artists--like Harry Belafonte did for me--share my stage and experience that. You know, a lot of the tradition is just gone. A lot of young people want to become jazz singers, but there are not more jam sessions like there used to be. I just want to have the opportunity to be able to bring that to some young people."
Awards
Has received four Grammy nominations, and won Grammy, for In The Moment-Live In Concert, 2001.
Works
Selected Discography
- "Better Days," (single), 1987.
- "Endangered Species," (single), 1993.
- The Grand Encounter, Blue Note, 1996.
- In The Moment: Live In Concert, 2000.
- The Calling: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan, 2001.
Further Reading
Periodicals
- Downbeat, February 1997, p. 28; June 2001, p. 28.
- Essence, August 2001, p. 60.
- LeJazz, issue #5, 1997.
- http://www.allmusic.com.
- http://www.diannereeves.com.
- http://www.ejn.it/mus/reeves.htm.
- http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/ellington01/meet2.html.
— Christine Miner Minderovic
